Whisper, Slowly: A series of KOTLC Oneshots

Dexarella - I've got you

I!!!! Am!!!! Back!!!!

Dedicated to  CrazyFangirl_otps for the ship;) Hope you enjoy!

T/W ; I have tried to describe a panic attack, so if you're not comfortable with that, I'm sorry;(

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The first time Dex had a panic attack, it was in the middle of elven history.

He was laughing and chattering (he should have expected it, Sophie had mentioned it--) as he made his way over to the desks, hitching up the silver cape over his slacks, settling into the chair with ease as he looked up at the teacher who had just walked in.

"Now class, we're finally moving on to the Moonlark era - which means you'll be learning about some of your fellow classmates and what they've done throughout their years in this school - other than just pass their exams of course."

As the rest of the class started in an uproar of laughter, the smile slipped off his face as he nodded uneasily. He scratched his arms while he faced the front of the class, trying to circulate the ice-like blood into his rapidly numbing feet. 

The last thing he wanted to do was to deal with the stares and grins of his classmates.

But Dex just gritted his teeth, digged his nails into his palms and kept his head down, trying to ignore the soon circulating whispers. Having a half deaf ear from a great war sometimes did get in handy when trying to get through a particularly difficult lesson.  Even when Marella, the only other person from the black swan threaded her thin hand through his, he squeezed back hard on instinct, ignoring the fact that she had even bothered to take care of him at all.

But the second that they started talking about his character, about how he had been stranded in the cave, all alone while Sophie had atleast waken up and helped vanquish them, about how he had briefly "worked and manipulated" the black swan on the orders of the council and made that ill-fated circlet (conveniently forgetting the threats that were given to him about his family) and how he even attempted to have a relationship with the star moonlark, before she, out of pity left him a kiss and deemed him her friend, Dex knew he was in trouble. The room seemed to close in around him and shaking, he reached up to loosen up his silver cape which now seemed to strangle him with silver like threads.

"Dizznee ? You there?"

Dex didn't reply. He didn't feel it was physically possible. The silver threads had somehow grown and started choking him, becoming a ticking bomb, a noose near his throat, while the walls also began to close in. He wanted to curl his hands into fists and punch right through them. He knew they weren't moving, it was just an illusion but his heart still started to pound erratically; his mind frantically searching for ways to escape. His stomach lurched, adrenaline pumping and he wanted to scream to let out all the fear that's been building inside him for so long.

"Dex, do you need anything?"

What he needed was for Professor Beckett to stop exposing him, telling everyone his flaws from back then, to stop regaling his classmates with his misdemeanours. It felt so personal, too personal to be written on a text book, to be taught in class, and to be made to be recited out loud for some exam. He had been detailing every single event that happened and his skin crawled with the familiarity of it all. With every word the professor said, Dex felt like leaping out of his chair to muffle every single whisper and unwanted stare. The feeling of being cut open, sliced apart like a corpse on a gurney lingered with him through every single point detailed on the wall. He felt the urge to rip off his skin and crawl away from all of this - his background, his stories, his entire life in the lost cities, so he could start all over again, fresh.